Micheaux’s Southern Cuisine in Missouri City should be declared a national treasure.

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This is only the second installment of my Worth the Drive West (De tabernis que valent illam carratam ad occidente) lunch series featuring my favorite finds between Westbury (Meyerland) where we live, and Sugarland to our southwest (thus avoiding the media-saturated although always exciting food scene within Houston’s I-610 Loop).

But I feel like I’ve already reached a zenith with this one and it’s going to be hard to beat.

Micheaux’s Southern Cuisine would already be at the top of my southwest Houston restaurant lists for the superb cookery, with a loving focus on classic southern dishes. But it was the overall vibe of the place, on two separate visits, where the super pro and warmly polite staff gave you the sense that they love working there — and they love the soulful food the kitchen puts out.

I’m a little bummed that they discontinued the shrimp po’ boy but that won’t stop us from going back.

Tracie swooned when I brought her home some of their black-eyed peas a few weeks ago. And she inhaled the red beans I ferried back last week.

Roast chicken, braised ox tails, smothered pork chops, meatloaf were just some of the entrées on offer with the spectrum of classic sides (don’t miss the mac and cheese).

I believe the Micheaux family’s catering business is their focus. We’re definitely eyeing the spot for our next big activism event at the house.

I’ve seen the restaurant packed at lunch with a local crowd. Haven’t visited yet for dinner but they stay open until 8 p.m.

My Southwest Houston, I’m discovering, is a land of churches, immigrants, and wonderful restaurants that devotedly nourish the community. I’ve got my eye on a Vietnamese sandwich shop for my next post in the series.

Stay tuned and please make the trip out to Micheaux’s (it’s pretty fast on the Fort Bend Parkway). It’s worth the drive west!

Dear California, I know it seems like we are all out of our minds here in Texas. But don’t give up on us yet!

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Dear California, I know it seems like we are all out of our minds here in Texas. But don’t give up on us yet!

A good friend from your state recently commented on a photo of our Texas-born children that my wife (born and raised in Orange, Texas) posted on her Facebook.

“Great!” she wrote, clearly sharing her joy in seeing our kids grow up healthy, strong, and determined. But the line that followed left us crestfallen.

“Now we just got to get you out of Texas!” she added.

Remarks like that are hurtful and make us feel like all that matters to you is that we live in a place you don’t like.

But given our truly laughable and often frightening political class, I can also understand how you have such a warped perception of who we are and how we live our lives.

Please continue reading my post today for the Southeast Texas Impact Initiative Substack.

Impact — as we shorthand it — is a tireless progressive activism organizer headquartered in the Golden Triangle, where Tracie grew up, one of the most ruby red of the ruby red zones of our state. These folks never stop registering voters, block walking, connecting people with resources they need, protesting the MAGA hegemon… They are great people and I’m proud to be one of them, representing our corner of SETX (as we acronymize it).

Please consider reading, subscribing and maybe even giving. They will be a key local player in the run-up to the midterms. Thanks for the support and solidarity.

Parzen family letter: first day of high school!

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We still can’t believe it’s finally here: Georgia’s first day of school at the Kinder High School for the Performing & Visual Arts in downtown Houston.

That’s Georgia on the right (OBVIOUSLY! as she would say), wearing her favorite Gorillaz shirt and sporting her super cool new accessorized purse.

Tracie and I dropped her off early this morning. Wow! We are so excited for her year ahead, the new friends she’ll make, the music she’ll play, the concerts… How can I deny that this is one of my dreams come true?

Lila Jane, à gauche, started her last year at Meyerland Middle School a week ago Monday.

Always impeccably put together, with myriad bedazzled accessories and a speckled red beagle named Tillie by her side, she is playing once again in the school’s varsity orchestra and will be traveling to Chicago this winter for a performance at the Midwest Clinic International Band and Orchestra Conference. Wow! Just wow! That’s a big one.

She’s gearing up for her Region Orchestra tryout and her Kinder HSPVA audition early next year. Her playing is so gorgeous these days and we are all geeked for her year ahead as a “senior” and the concerts and recitals she’ll perform in.

Tracie has been working as hard as ever and — poo, poo, poo — her career continues to move at a brisk clip. We made sure to take some serious time off this summer to recharge. That was wonderful and we had a blast exploring fun hotels and restaurants in New Orleans.

Me? I’ve been working on the writing project I’m launching later this year (stay tuned!), putting finishing touches on my 14th-century wine book translation to be published by U. of Toronto, and contributing to the Southeast Texas Impact Initiative newsletter.

It’s been a really tough year for me. Both of my parents have died. My dog died. I had emergency surgery to remove a tumor from my neck. But even in my darkest moments, I was surrounded by Tracie, the girls, the dogs, and my Texas families… always reminding me of the countless blessings in my life.

Happy back to school, everyone! Stay safe.

Happy birthday Lila Jane! 13!

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Happy birthday sweet Lila Jane! You are 13!

You’ve had a great year.

Great grades. Varsity orchestra. First chair and excellence award at your summer music camp (that was so awesome!). Tons of friends who adore you. Your room, always impeccably organized and beautifully decorated. The most special little beagle/red heeler mix, Tillie Billie Eilish. And a family that loves and is so proud of you.

Mommy and I are so proud of the young person you are becoming. We’ve watched you grow both inside and out this year. And we know you are ready and strong for the big year ahead.

Happy birthday, sweet girl! We’ve been celebrating with family and friends all week and tonight we’ll share another birthday cake with your California friends. Happy birthday! We love you.

Just try to use “polyptoton” in a sentence. It’s not easy!

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While on vacation last week, I found myself needing the word polyptoton.

I used it in a post for the Southeast Texas Impact Initiative Substack. Writing about Vance’s “Communion” and Trump’s “communism,” it was the perfect lemma to bring it all together.

Here’s the article…

Whether communion or communism, Trumplicans subscribe to the school of “make it up as you go along.”

Even though it had been reduced from its list price of $35, I still couldn’t bear to shell out the $22.75 for J.D. Vance’s recently published memoir “Communion” (Harper 2026). Sorry, JD.

But I did read New York Times opinion contributor Carlos Lozada’s acute takedown of the Yale Law School grad’s new rationalization of the Maga racist, Christian nationalist policy platform.

Vance’s book teeters over his path to Catholicism. It’s enough to warm your heart.

But “deep” within this tome, the former U.S. senator representing Fifi-eating Buckeyes, and current Trump number 2 lays out his vision for the white supremacist Christian nation he envisions as our country’s future (ok, he didn’t actually write “white supremacist” but you don’t really need to read between the lines to infer the more profound meaning of his pseudo-philosophical syllogism.)

“The decline of Christianity has left us without a shared moral language,” Vance informs his readers. “Each of us, in our own weird ways, is guilty of casting aside the Christian inheritance of our civilization,” the VP opines.

Wow…

Click here to continue reading on Impact’s Substack. Thank you for being here and thank you for supporting Impact!

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo “was damned well a Houstonian.” Say his name! ICE murders must stop!

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Tracie and I are praying for the family of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. He was fatally shot by ICE agents here in Houston on Tuesday morning.

His crime? He was undocumented. No criminal history. More than half of his life spent in Houston working to build a life for his family.

I was blown away this morning by a line from our paper of record, the Houston Chronicle. Its editors published an opinion yesterday entitled “ICE lies. And now they’ve killed a Houstonian.”

“Lorenzo may not have been an American on paper,” the paper’s editorial board wrote, “but he was damned well a Houstonian.”

That’s what the MAGA hegemon refuses to acknowledge: they are killing their fellow citizens, whether Minneapolitans or now a Houstonian. Last year, they were forced to admit that they killed an San Antonian American citizen in Texas as well. At least 20 people have died in ICE custody this year. Last year, 33 persons died in ICE custody.

Please say Lorenzo’s name! Please support your community by letting your fellow Americans — documented or undocumented — know that we see them, that we care about them, that they are citizens of our communities. Please remember that people in your city are forced to live with the constant fear that masked men in unmarked cars may prey on them or their loved ones without any notice.

On MLK Day this year, Rev. Jefferson, the leader of the Orange, Texas chapter of the NAACP, said what everyone has been thinking. ICE is the new Ku Klux Klan, he told the crowd gathered for celebration at Mt. Olive Church.

We’ll see if our mayor or our governor will make sure that ICE is held accountable for the killing of yet another productive member of society. In the meantime, we will continue to protest in the southeast Texas summer heat and we will continue to pray.

G-d bless Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and his family. G-d please, please protect our communities from ICE.

What I love about America: Ben’s Chili Bowl. Happy Fourth!

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Back when I was living in NYC and supporting myself through music, the bands I played with often performed at the Black Cat, a wonderful rock club in Washington D.C., not too far from Howard University.

No show at the Black Cat was complete without a late-night, after-show visit to Ben’s Chili Bowl, the legendary hot dog and chili restaurant just a short walk away.

I remember running into some cool dudes from a Washington-area band who had performed on the same bill as us.

Man, it’s so cool that you have a place like this in your town, I told one of them.

You’re not from around here, are you? he said. No, I told him, my band is from New York.

This is the south, he told me. And Ben’s Chili Bowl is one of the few places where it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white. Everyone hangs out here!

When I was back in the capital last year for a job, I made a beeline to Ben’s as soon as I finished work.

After I ordered my food and took a seat, “The Need to Be” by Gladys Knight and the Pips came on the radio.

Gladys sang over the loudspeaker:

To fulfill the need to be who I am
In this world, is all I ask
I can’t pretend to be something that I’m not
And I won’t wear a mask

Ben’s Chili Bowl is everything I love about our country: a neighborhood place where all kinds of people can be together just for the sheer fun of it, where all are welcome.

Happy Fourth everyone! If you’re in Houston, stop by the house for a hot dog and some homemade chili. That’s what we’ll be cooking. Everyone is welcome.

The Reflecting Pool fiasco is a good omen.

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The Mountain Dew hue of Trump’s botched Reflecting Pool restoration has become a stand-in for the grand level of his incompetence. He is the sparkling New York realtor and TV star who lacks the wherewithal of even your garden-variety swimming pool maintenance technician. And why is the president of the U.S. busying himself with such mundane issues when the rest of the world is on fire?

Click here to read my post this week for Southeast Texas Impact Initiative.

Impact, as we members of the group shorthand it, is a widely active and highly disciplined progressive group in Orange County, Texas, a land where Ruby Red Republicans outnumber Democrats four to one.

Weekly protests in Rogers Park in Beaumont, weekly Zoom meetings where Orange County residents can learn how to get involved in local politics, aggressive representation at city council and planning meetings… These guys are doing the day-to-day work, making sure that Democratic voices are heard in a place where they have been historically suppressed.

If you live in Orange, County (which includes the city of Orange, where Tracie grew up and where we spend a lot of time with family), please join up!

And if you want to support from afar, please donate via the group’s website.

Thanks for being there. Thanks for being here. And thanks for reading.

Natural wine gets its revenge at Slow Food U.

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Last week, a man named Nicola Perullo was named the new president of the Slow Food University of Gastronomic Sciences in Piedmont, Italy. He replaces the larger-than-life founder of the Slow Food movement and its earliest voice, Carlo Petrini, who recently passed away.

During the seven years I taught in the graduate program there, I only met Perullo once, in passing.

But the students would often share their impressions of his seminars with me.

Perullo is a brilliant scholar and self-styled contemporary philosopher. On paper, there’s no doubt about it, this dude has the goods (Derrida was an advisor on his doctoral thesis!). He’s carved a name for himself in the world of food and wine thanks to his extensive and impressive writings on the aesthetics of wine.

Because I taught communications, my students and I often discussed the historic natural wine movement and its epistemological implications: how natural wine, as an abstract concept, shaped our knowledge of wine knowledge.

I can’t remember a semester when the students didn’t ask me what I thought of Perullo’s core belief (and I believe that “belief” is the right word here because of the quasi-religious elements of the biodynamic and natural wine movements): if a wine tastes good, then it must be bad, he would instruct them. In other words, if it pleases it must be a product of the Babylonian wine industry.

It’s a paradox. It’s a conundrum. And it flummoxed my students.

It was Carlo Petrini himself who anointed Perullo as his successor. I can’t recall anywhere in his writings where Petrini made such an audacious claim. But it’s clear that this is the direction Perullo will lead the institution.

Until my final year there, I enjoyed teaching in Pollenzo immensely. But I also saw how the hyperaestheticization of wine distances it from its nutritional design. My students would often complain how Perullo and his natural wine fellows (all from Triple A distributors) would demean them because of their supposed lacunose wine knowledge.

It’s one of my biggest takeaways from the experience: if wine can’t be good and fun and shared in joy and friendship, what’s the point? 

My new favorite Middle Eastern restaurant is where you’d least expect it.

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Now that I’m no longer traveling two weeks out of every month, I’ve been enjoying the home time and the Houston time.

Our family lives just to the southwest of Houston’s “Loop” where most of the high-profile and fine dining takes place. While we have ready access to the central dining scene, we are also just a stone’s throw from an archipelago of small municipalities in the western section of our megalopolis.

With more time on the ground and yawny with the however wonderfully vibrant culinary world inside the Loop, I’ve been treating myself to lunch out with one overarching criterion: the restaurant where I dine has to be to the west of me (not to the east inside the Loop).

One of my earliest finds has been the extraordinary Middle Eastern restaurant Kabab Shack and Grill.

From the outside, this joint looks like just another anonymous strip mall restaurant. But once you walk inside and notice that the cooks are impeccably outfitted in black chef coats and toques, it becomes clear that the venue’s focus is gastronomic excellence. The older gentleman at the counter, whom I imagine is the owner, reminded me of the old school kebab places I’ve frequented in France, Italy, and Israel.

I ate every last bit of my gyro-stuffed pita. The meat was wonderfully savory without being excessively salty. The lettuce, onion, and tomato were fresh, crisp, and flavorful. And the fries, perfectly dressed with spice and tahini, were among the best I’ve ever eaten.

The thing that blew me away about this place was the professionalism of the cooks and the manager/owner. The kitchen was so clean and orderly I thought I was eating at Boulud in New York. It took a minute for my order to come out (I was one of the first customers that day) and one of the cooks made a point to thank me for my patience. The older gentleman who took my order was cordial and warm.

I loved this place and can’t wait to explore more of the menu. My new series on west Houston dining: “Worth the Drive West.” Stay tuned for more.